Artist Camille Henrot Branches Into Fashion With a Limited-Edition Capsule Based on Her Chinese Zodiac Series

French-born, New York–based artist Camille Henrot works in many different mediums: In her short film Grosse Fatigue, visuals mined from the Smithsonian’s archives flit around in web browser windows, while Ma Montagne is a series of sculptures inspired by artisanal cheese makers. Her practice also includes drawings and large-scale assemblage installations, but her recent collaboration with the Swiss Institute for the Independent Art Fair in New York this past weekend found her branching out for the first time into fashion.

Henrot’s new garments, which illustrate the animals of the zodiac in positions of distress and submission, are a continuation of her Chinese Zodiac series that premiered via daily horoscopes for Le Monde’s M magazine alongside her solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Building off the tradition of representing animals in textiles, such as the late-15th-century set of tapestries known as The Lady and the Unicorn, Henrot embroidered these multicolored drawings onto silk jackets, hoodies, and cashmere scarves in collaboration with Parenti’s. “I began researching online horoscopes, and discovered that such predictions convey a sense of the power dynamic at play in society,” Henrot describes. “My representation of the zodiac plays on this dynamic of excess and absurdity.”

One of the silk jackets depicts a horse jumping headfirst into a wall. “This inspired the depiction of the horse jumping into the wall, which I imagined as a feeling of moving too fast without thinking,” she says. “I was also picturing the horse in the Hitchcock film Marnie in his wild, fateful gallop.” And since it’s the Year of the Dog, it’s only natural that Henrot featured images of canines as well. Playing off the domination and submission inherent in the relationship between man’s best friend and its trainer, Henrot depicted a dog in two distinct visuals: In one, an overly submissive dog cowers in shame, and in another, the dog gets its revenge by gnawing on the disembodied leg of its master.

Working with textiles posed some new challenges for the artist. “What was so special and fascinating about working on scarves was that I was thinking of the drawings as seen from multiple dimensions on the body—wrapping around a person but also folding onto itself—and how the wearer would make the drawing evolve,” Henrot says. The limited-edition garments are currently being sold through the Swiss Institute, and the full collection will be made available at Frieze New York in early May. Until then, take a look at some of Henrot’s S&M–conjuring zodiac creations below.